Where Wild Horses Run
by zeldalookslonely
Summary: In which Annie and Britta are roommates, and Jeff prefers to play games he knows he can lose. Darkest timeline.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I listened to "You Love To Fail" by the Magnetic Fields ten times in a row, and this happened. Also, I haven't seen any Season 4 episodes, so this is probably way off. Part one of two.

_..._

_and I wanna take you out, but you always refuse_

_cause you only play the games that you know you can lose_

_you love to fail, that's all you love_

...

Annie and Britta rent a townhouse together, and everything is pretty nice. Annie gets the larger bedroom because Britta says she prefers a room with a view, and they work out a shower schedule that doesn't inconvenience either party too terribly, and _it's nice_, Annie thinks. Living with Britta is different from living alone, but not worse, and Britta is clearly making an effort because she wants this to work. They both do. It's nice.

One Saturday, Britta invites Dean Pelton over for an impromptu dinner party. She tells Annie the day of, in a text message.

Annie: Why on earth would you do that?

Britta: 4 the lulz

Annie: Cancel!

Britta: u will luv it

.

Annie: Do you want to come over tonight?

Jeff: when

Annie: Eight.

.

Britta: can u pick up wine?

Annie: I hate you.

Britta: lies

.

Annie brings home the wine, along with bread and shrimp, because she has no idea what Britta is planning to serve at this little shindig.

"Honey," she calls, walking through their front door, "I'm home!" It's their standard terrible joke.

No answer. She sets the wine on the dining table and brings the grocery bags to the kitchen. Britta is sitting on the counter, _covered _in flour. Her forehead is stained purple, and it almost complements the blue streak in her hair.

"Um," Annie says.

Britta holds up one hand and shakes her head. "Don't."

"Um," Annie says again. _Dontlaughdontlaughdontlaughdontlaugh_.

"I ordered Italian. I'm picking it up at six, and the Dean will be here at six-thirty. That's all we're going to say about this."

Annie bites her lip because _don't laugh_, and lets it go. "I invited Jeff."

"Really? Why?"

She makes air quotes. "The lulz."

Britta snorts. "Gotcha."

Annie: Can you make it seven?

Jeff: k

...

The Dean shows up in a truly fabulous vintage yellow dress and black heels that Annie can't stop admiring. They eat shrimp and veggies and drink wine, and Annie's glad this is happening because the Dean keeps _saying things_. She doesn't think she's ever seen Britta laugh this hard.

The bell rings at seven on the dot, and when Annie flings open the door, Jeff smiles. His hair is kind of a mess and he actually looks relaxed. For a second Annie feels guilty, but then the Dean flounces into the entryway and slides an arm around Jeff's waist. He says, "Helloooo, Jeffrey," and the look on Jeff's face is priceless. Priceless.

...

"Vegetarian meatballs are heinous," says Jeff.

"Jeffrey!" scolds the Dean. "Be nice." He brushes a fingertip along Jeff's jaw. His nail polish is the same shade of yellow as his dress.

Britta chokes on her laughter and Jeff facepalms and Annie has to bolt from the table to spend a moment alone in the bathroom to laugh and think and _feel so free_.

...

Later, Jeff sits on Annie's bed and glares at her. "That was cruel."

"You had fun."

"False."

"Well," she says, toeing off her shoes and digging pajamas out of her dresser, "_I _had fun."

"_You_ didn't have the Dean's hand resting on your thigh all night."

Annie shrugs, and leaves to change in the bathroom. When she gets back, Jeff has stripped to boxers.

"Staying the night?" she asks.

Jeff hums. He's studying his reflection in the mirror over Annie's dresser. "I'm less symmetrical."

Annie watches him. He stares at the place where his missing arm should be, then at her. "I'm..." He trails off, frowning.

She touches him on the shoulder, gently. "You _really _make it work," she says.

Some of the tense lines in his face smooth over. "I know," he says, then, "Are _you _making it work?"

She shrugs. "They think we're having sex," she says.

"They?"

"Everyone."

"We're not."

"Oh, I know that, Jeff."

He kisses her, then, teeth and tongue and wet and dirty. His hand settles on the small of her back. "You taste like..." His breath hitches. "I can't give you what you need."

"I can wait for you," she says, curling her fingers into tight fists to stop the trembling. "I can wait until you're ready."

He looks profoundly puzzled. "Why would you ever wait for me?"

...

_we don't know why you've been gone_

_somebody said you're on the run_

_you're living where wild horses run_

_well hey, whatever turns you on_

...

Jeff moves to California.

"Temporarily," he says to Annie. Over the phone. From California. Where he moved. Without telling her.

Craig is inconsolable. He wears black for weeks and Britta tries to cheer him up by painting his toenails red and pink.

"Look," she says, "I painted tiny flowers! It's toe art."

Craig half smiles. "Do Annie's after this. She needs it, too."

Britta gives Annie a sympathetic look. "Do you need toe art, Annie?"

Annie thinks about retreating to her room and hunkering down, alone and safe. She thinks about drawing the curtains and living in the dark. She sighs. "Can I have purple flowers?"

...

Saturday night dinners at Annie and Britta's become a regular thing. Craig doesn't dress up as much anymore, but he still makes them laugh more than anyone.

They're eating Craig's special stir-fry (don't ask about the secret ingredient) when Annie's phone buzzes with a text from Jeff: a picture of a yellow tulip. The doorbell rings; she jumps out of her chair and races to the door; her hand hovers over the handle for a few seconds before she takes a deep breath and pulls it open.

It's Troy. Sans goatee and Abed.

"Annie," he says, and she squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to remember Pierce (_piercepiercepierce_) and a gun, _her gun_, and a fire.

Britta and Craig walk up behind her, and Britta gasps. "Troy?"

Troy shifts uncomfortably. "Can I crash here for a few days?"

Britta raises her eyebrows at Annie and Annie nods imperceptibly, and they have a new roommate.

...

Annie likes having two roommates. Sometimes they rest in puppy piles on Troy's fold-out sofa in the living room, whispering secrets and questions. Annie asks Troy about Abed.

"I don't know how to help him," he says. "He kicked me out."

Troy asks Annie about Jeff.

"He keeps sending me pictures of garbage cans."

"Why would he-?" asks Britta.

"I'm not sure I want to know," says Annie.

...

Annie throws herself into her work at the hospital, and if she finds it less rewarding than she hoped, she decides she'll just have to work that much harder. Her boss is a sweetheart, and Troy likes to come by at lunchtime to eat with her in the cafeteria.

"French fries," he says, by way of explanation. She just nods, and he smiles.

Her boss sets her up with a "very nice boy". He picks her up at home and submits to Britta's awkward questioning and Troy's evil eye. He smiles at her and pays for dinner and walks her to her door at the end of the night. She kisses him, hard, and he moans into her mouth.

She can't really remember his name.

...

Annie: Will you do something with me?

Shirley: Absolutely.

"I've been doing the best I can," says Shirley, over coffee.

Annie nods. "I've missed you," she says, carefully. Then, less carefully, "So much. I miss you so much. I can hardly stand it."

"Oh, Annie."

After coffee, they go back to Shirley's house and watch movies and eat too much ice cream. Her boys hover, stealing bites of mint chocolate chip and smiling at Annie.

"How's Jeff?"

Annie shrugs. "Jeff's fine."

"What's he been up to out there?"

Annie thinks about Jeff's last text - a picture of a broken glass bottle. "I honestly have no idea."

...

Britta and Annie leave Abed dozens of messages. He doesn't return their calls.

...

One day, Annie discovers a photo of Pierce in the back of her closet. Her stomach clenches and she has to close her eyes, but only for a second. She frames the photo and hangs in up in the hallway.

"I miss him," says Britta, when she sees it. "I mean. I think I do. No, I do. Definitely. Probably."

Annie laughs. "I know what you mean."

...

Annie's eating lunch with Troy when her phone rings. It's Shirley.

"Annie, honey, are you free to babysit tonight? We were hoping for a night out."

Annie feels like her throat is going to close up. "You- you trust me to watch them?"

Shirley's voice is soft. "Of course."

"Yes," says Annie. "Yes, of course I will."

They make plans while Troy eats half the food on her plate, and she's beaming by the time she hangs up. She can feel her smile shift into a frown when her phone buzzes again. "A text from Jeff," she says.

Troy's watching her. "Aren't you going to read it?"

She stares at the phone. "It's been almost a year." She taps the table top nervously. "I think I'm going to delete it."

Troy covers her hand with his own and nods. She stands and pulls him into an impulsive hug. Sometimes her friends are perfect.

...

Jeff Winger kisses Annie Edison in her bedroom, falls asleep in her bed, makes her breakfast the next morning, then runs away. Jeff runs away because Jeff is incomplete, incomplete in _oh _so many ways, and that's what he does.

He tells everyone he cares about that he has some vague temporary job in Los Angeles, and he flies there. It feels just like old times.

He just- exists. He crashes in a guest bedroom thanks to the eternal gratitude of one of his former clients, and thinks about life, and existence, and sometimes Annie. Annie, who is in a situation with a job that actually pays rent. He thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he's the 21 year-old and she's the responsible adult. _A grand role-reversal_.

...

Jeff can tell that Carol is getting concerned. Partially because she stops him one day and says, "Jeff. I'm a little concerned."

He should thank her for her hospitality and get out of her hair. He should insist. "I'm sorry," he says, because he is a pale, incomplete imitation of his former self.

"Don't be sorry," she says. "Just shower once in a while." She gives him a cheeky grin. "Some people manage it daily."

"Carol," he says. "Tell me something."

"What?"

"Hypothetically, if someone says they'll _wait _for you. What, uh, do you think that means?"

She doesn't go for the hypothetical. "You need to figure out what you want, Jeff."

"Knowing what I _want _is not the issue."

...

Jeff doesn't know whether people notice him on the street because he's ridiculously handsome, or because he is conspicuously minus one arm. He winks at a soccer mom, and she blushes.

_Make it work_, he thinks to himself. _Make it work, make it work_.

...

He finds a job in sales. He spends a lot of time on the phone. He's very good at it, and he starts paying Carol for the room.

He sends Annie a picture of the stray cat that sometimes hangs around outside his office building. He wonders if she's waiting. He wonders if this is a test. He thinks he's probably failing.

...

Britta calls.

"Jeff, you magnificent douchebag! When are you coming home?"

He can't help grinning. "I don't know yet, Britta."

"Have you talked to Annie lately?"

"Why? Is she okay?"

"Call her and find out. I mean, you could keep sending creepy, cryptic pictures every freaking day. Or you could call and talk to her. Up to you."

Jeff is offended. Those pictures are _not _creepy. He spends a lot of time figuring out which image best expresses how he _feels _each day. He's finally in touch with his feelings, and she says it's creepy.

"Whatever, Britta. Annie gets it."

"I think you're overestimating her ability to like, read your mind."

He sighs. "You just don't get it."

"I'm rolling my eyes right now. If you were _home already_, you could witness the eyeroll in person." She laughs. "God, when we were moving Troy in, he-"

"Troy moved in with you guys?"

"Yeah, like months ago, did you not- oh, shit, gotta go. Craig's here. I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Britta? Damnit."

...

He sends Annie a picture of his only hand. It was a bitch to take.

...

He's drinking iced tea with Carol when he asks it.

"What am I doing here?"

She laughs. "Jesus, Jeff, I have no idea. I'm happy to have you, though."

He thinks about his room here, and Carol, and his job. He thinks of Greendale. "I think I'm ready to go home."

...

When he steps off the plane, he retrieves his car and heads straight for the hospital. _Annie Annie Annie_. A smiling redhead directs him to the cafeteria. "She's with her _friend_," she whispers good-naturedly. Jeff freezes. _Doesn't matter_. _Doesn't matter_. But he breathes a heavy sigh of relief when he sees that she's sitting with _Troy _and talking on the phone. She's smiling. Her hair is different. Smiling.

He snaps a photo of her from across the room and sends it to her phone. He kind of can't believe he's going to pull this off. He sees her get the text, and he waits for her to stand and look for him and smile more.

She doesn't. She frowns, and she hugs Troy, who looks a little bemused, and she leaves.  
_  
So_, he thinks, _setback_.

When he really thinks about it, this wasn't entirely unexpected.


	2. Chapter 2

...

_i'll be your confidante  
come and go as you please  
i'll honor and protect my  
Wagner in dungarees_

...

Jeff calls Britta.

"I'm home."

She whoops. "Jeff, holy shit, when are you getting your ass over here?"

"It's a little complicated."

He can almost _hear _her rolling her eyes. "Does Annie know you're home?"

"Not exactly. I don't think so."

"Coward," she says. "You're a coward."

"It's not-"

"Coward! Get your shit together and be here for Saturday night dinner. Craig's making french toast."

"_Craig_? Wait, when you say _Craig_, you don't mean-"

"Just be here."

"Just - don't tell her, okay? Don't tell her I might show up, I'll talk to her when I get there."

"Yeah, whatever. You're weird. And Jeff?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad you're home."

"Me too."

...

He knocks on Abed's door. No answer.

"Abed! I can hear you in there, buddy. Open up." He rolls his eyes. "_Evil_ Abed? Will you let me in?"

Nothing.

...

Jeff decides to show up on Saturday. He doesn't really have a better play.

Annie answers the door in... makeup. Bright red lipstick smeared on and around her lips, pink blush along her cheekbones, and at least four different shades of eyeshadow. There's tiny writing in black eyeliner on her forehead. Jeff leans in, too close.

"_Annie rocks my socks_," he reads aloud. "Interesting. Apt."

Annie gapes. "Jeff. When did you...?"

Jeff is kind of an asshole, he knows. That part of him doesn't just disappear because he's in - this thing - with Annie. So he pulls back, smirks. "Why, Annie. It's almost as if you didn't get my message. _Any _of my recent messages. Must be a problem with your phone."

Annie closes her eyes. "Britta knew you were coming, didn't she?

"Possibly."

"_Let's play truth or dare, Annie!_" she mimics. "_I dare you to let Troy give you a makeover, Annie!_"

Jeff laughs, loud. It sounds like something shattering.

...

Britta, Troy, and Dean Pelton greet Jeff exuberantly enough, and Annie directs him to a seat at the table between the Dean and Troy.

"Excuse me," she says, "while I wash my face." She shoots a glare at Britta and stalks off.

"She's going to nail your shoes to the floor again, Britta," says Troy.

"Or hide your leather jackets," says the Dean.

Britta shrugs. "Worth it."

When Annie comes back, she points to Britta and says, "The hinges to your bedroom door are now mine."

Britta huffs. "How is that _even possible_? You were gone five minutes!" She sullenly sips her orange juice and Annie smirks.

Jeff has to fight to keep a straight face.

...

The Dean keeps touching Jeff's chest. "Jeffrey," he says, "what are your plans now that you're home?"

"I'm not sure. I'll try to get my job back. I guess I'm mostly just... _waiting_." Jeff glances at Annie. She looks pointedly away, and there's a stubborn set to her shoulders.

"Waiting?" asks Troy.

"Waiting."

...

Jeff spends every Saturday night getting groped by the Dean at Annie and Britta's. Annie doesn't look at him much, and Britta and Troy look at each other _a lot_. Sometimes, after Dean Pelton's fingers trace a disturbing line along his abs, the Dean winks at Annie and she looks amused. _Dean Pelton _and _Annie _have inside jokes about him. This is a _thing _that has happened. This is his life.

...

He calls Shirley, and she invites him over for dinner. He sits at her table with Andre and their boys, and Shirley sits Ben in his lap, then laughs at his bemused expression.

"You look so much better," he says.

"You don't look half-bad yourself, world traveler."

"Half-bad? Was that a _cripple _joke, Shirley?"

"Happy accident!" she trills.

Andre snorts. "_Handily_ executed, honey."

"Do you see what I have to put up with?" Jeff asks Ben.

Ben smiles and claps his hands.

...

It takes almost three months for Annie to contact Jeff on her own. When her name pops up on his phone, he fumbles the damn thing and has to chase it as it skids across his apartment floor.

"Hello?" he answers, breathlessly.

"Jeff," she says.

"Annie."

"I'm just leaving work. Thought I'd call to say hello."

"Hello!" he says, too loudly, too quickly.

She laughs, then sighs. "Okay, Jeff. I'll talk to you later."

He says good-bye, but she's already ended the call.

...

Jeff gets his job back. Of course he does. About a month after he starts, one of the partners drops a folder in the hallway and Jeff reflexively tries to catch it with his missing hand. He stumbles into the wall with a _smack _and groans, mortified. The man smiles at him gently, and Jeff tries to smile back before he walks to his office.

_It's okay_, he thinks. _It's okay_. _It can suck and be okay, at the same time._

...

One Saturday, he shows up for dinner at Britta and Annie's with alcohol. Annie grins at him and then waves with mock imperiousness. "Dirty martini, barkeep!"

Britta orders pizza and soon everyone is almost astoundingly drunk.

"So," Annie says, "I sat outside his apartment for two straight days, and he never came out! He hates me. I can't... I feel..." Dean Pelton strokes her hair.

Troy says, "He actually uses the fire escape to get in and out."

Annie stares. "Really? I thought he snuck out during one of my pee breaks."

Britta giggles. "You pee like, all the time."

"It's true," Troy says. "The fire escape thing, and the thing about you peeing all the time. It's all true."

"Let's come up with a master plan," Annie says. "I know! First, we find a battering ram-"

"Yes," Troy says. "Definitely, yes."

"_Battering ram_, wow. Clearly a solid plan," says Jeff.

Annie frowns distantly. "You don't have to help. I wasn't expecting you to help."

Jeff loses himself in the hazy burn of alcohol and Annie's low expectations and says, "I'll help. I'll always help. You can depend on me. Just ask, and I'll help however you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. You're not alone, I want to be here for you. You have _no idea_."

A beat of silence, and then all at the same time:

"This is awkward," says Britta.

"You sent me a picture of a dead squirrel on my birthday," says Annie.

"She's not alone, regardless," says the Dean.

"I _do _still have that key to Abed's," says Troy.

...

The morning after their drunken Saturday night dinner, Annie paces. She fiddles with her phone, reading over the message she's typed and deleted and re-typed half a dozen times. _You can depend on me, just ask_, he'd said. Maybe she and Jeff have both been doing too much waiting. She hits send.

Annie: If we want to be friends, we should be able to talk about things.

Her phone buzzes immediately

Jeff: i agree  
Annie: I missed you while you were gone.  
Annie: What if I really am the evil version of myself?  
Jeff: i was the dead squirrel  
Jeff: i'd be ok with that.

Annie blinks. _Wait_, _what_?

Annie: You were the dead squirrel.  
Jeff: yeah  
Annie: That squirrel was hit by a car, Jeff.  
Jeff: yeah  
Annie: Were you the garbage cans, too?  
Jeff: yeah

Fifteen minutes later, Annie stands in front of the door to Jeff's apartment, frowning and shifting her weight from one foot to another. _Courage_. She knocks. Jeff opens the door and pulls her inside; she thinks he might have been expecting her.

"I thought you knew," he says.

"I didn't. I didn't, I-"

"I didn't mean to-"

"You just _left_, you know? I wanted to move on, but I couldn't stop _waiting_, even when I-"

"I'm such a mess, I'll never be myself again, I'm not _whole,_ I-"

"How could you think I'd care about that, I can't even-"

"Annie, I'm different, I'm not the same person you wanted before, I-"

"I want you," she says, softly. "This you, right here. I like _this _you."

"How do you know? How can you know? I'm not going to be _that guy_, Annie. That broken guy who breaks you."

Annie can feel her lips quirking and she wants to smile but she doesn't want to say the wrong thing, doesn't want to risk being misunderstood. _Oh_, she thinks, _you could probably wreck me, you could _devastate _me, if that's what you wanted. Maybe you have, maybe you will. But you can't break me. _

"_Jeff_," she whispers, and maybe he gets it, maybe he already knows, because he takes her hand and presses an open-mouthed kiss to her palm, then pulls her body flush to his.

"I missed you," he breathes, again and again, against her lips, against her ear, into her hair. She can barely understand him because his voice is a swirling heat, an ecstatic delirium that is robbing her of her senses, and she doesn't even try to stop trembling. She leads him to the sofa and pushes him into a sitting position, then stands in front of him, staring. Considering.

He smirks. "It's like that, is it? I see."

She makes a decision and straddles his lap, kissing him gently, reverently. "Do you?" she asks. "Do you see?"

He goes still, silent, then nods. She smiles against his neck.

...

Later, _hours _later, _days _later, _decades _later, Annie pulls a key from her purse and says, "I have plans."

Jeff frowns. "I thought we were going to ambush him all together, next weekend?"

"We did agree to that. But I might be evil Annie, remember? Evil Annie has no regard for the decisions of mere mortals. Evil Annie is impatient to see him."

"_Of course_, evil Annie talks in the third person. Of course."

"You love it," says Annie airily, and Jeff grins, doesn't say it. _Too soon, too much. Later_.

"Let's go."

...

Annie thinks they'll try again to convince Abed to open the door on his own, but Jeff says, "Just unlock it," and really, it does seem like giving him a warning could only lead to disaster. So, in the end, she opens the door and Abed is standing right there, in boxers and a t-shirt, eating a bowl of noodles. He looks very young, despite the goatee, and not at all surprised. Annie is suddenly furious.

"You've been avoiding us," she snaps, "and that is an understatement."

"Calculations," says Abed, waving at tall stacks of papers on the floor. "I've been doing important work."

"You gave up on us. You gave up on me. You gave up on _Troy_. How could you do that?"

"Annie," he says, "none of this will matter when we infiltrate the prime timeline and replace our non-evil counterparts."

"There are no other timelines!" says Jeff, "And we're not evil."

Annie hums. "I might be a little evil."

"Annie! Not helping!"

"Good, Annie," says Abed, stroking his goatee. "Good."

"Evil Annie wants her friend back, regardless of the _important work _he's doing. And you don't want to see evil Annie when she's angry."

"Here we go with the third person," mutters Jeff.

"Evil Annie demands silence!" says Annie, biting back a smile. _This is kind of fun_.

"You're enjoying this," says Jeff, and he's smiling at her in that way that makes her blush and look away because _oh god_.

"Ah," says Abed. "Has this already happened, or are we still working through a sad dance of unresolved sexual tension?"

Annie sighs. "Put on pants, Abed. We're going out."

...

Jeff doesn't know how Annie managed to get the entire group, plus the Dean, together on such short notice, but they all show up at a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint of her choosing. Troy greets Abed with infinite enthusiasm, and Abed responds coolly enough but Jeff thinks he can see _something _there. Annie abandons Jeff almost immediately for a long conversation with Abed and the Dean, and he rolls his eyes and shifts his attention to Britta and Troy teasing Shirley. By the time the pizza arrives at their table, Annie and the Dean are wearing felt beards and Abed looks more relaxed.

"We're just going to have to be patient with him," Annie whispers to Jeff. The felt tickles his ear.

Jeff looks around the table. "This is..."

"Weird? Evil?"

"Good. It's good."

Annie smiles, evilly.


End file.
